I explained.
They understood why I was reading this stuff but didn't understand why I did it here (here being the Festival Hall). "Because one might see or hear something new, you never know." They didn't really get that, so I told them a true story, one I thought would chime with them. "Things happen in the most unlikely places." I said.
In 2005 I was in South Yorkshire visiting my sick mater. Some of you will know that I'm a long-distance runner and even though a visit to most places outside London is like visiting Lilliput (no hate posts, please, I'll just ignore them) the prospect of being able to fell-run and run through countryside was gob-smacking after the tedium of the rat-run that is the Thames.
I had quite a few runs up there: Barnsley / Ilkley Moor / Wentworth / Hoober Stand / being one. That's a big run. But one day I changed the route back and ran down the A61 on the return leg and I passed a club, the kind of low-grade provincial fun-palace every town can lay claim to in a place called Birdwell, which is on the outskirts of Barnsley. As I ran by I noticed the blackboards outside advertising the 'turn' for that evening (as performers are known in those parts) and I stopped. I stopped because I was struck by the name on the board: the Arctic Monkeys. Were they a novelty act? A ventriloquist? I'd never heard of them. But that performance – their turn at being the star turn – was a turning point for them. The rest, as they say, is history.
Even further back – the late 70s to be exact – one of the blokes in the year above me on the Graphics course at Art School cornered me one day and asked my opinion about something he'd just designed. He'd been asked to design the cover for a local band's first 45. A live job! That's a big deal when you're a student. He showed it to me. It was OK, but the thing that stood out was the name of the band, it was an outfit called, Def Leppard.
So. Everyone and everything has to come from somewhere and the most surprising things come from the most unlikely places.
